The director of the Asian Studies Program at the University of Sydney, Adrian Vickers, says it is a good list, but he wonders why it has taken so long to identify the growth potential in Australia's relationship with Asia.

"The Asian Century is already well underway. Shouldn't we have been planning for that quite a while ago?" he said.

"I think we've got a lot of catching up to do. And particularly in terms of the ways that, in my own sector say, Asian universities are racing ahead.

"If you look at all of the international rankings, Asian universities are climbing up very quickly.

"And certainly the rapid advances in technology, in social change, in political change in Asia are things that we are struggling to keep up with as a nation."

Professor Vickers says there is a lack of money and no resources to do implement the white paper properly.

He says the attempts to increase language levels come at a time when students are deserting university language programs.

"Given that a lot of universities are seeing the teaching, say, of Indonesian as not economically viable.

"Two other universities in Australia recently have attempted, or thought about, cutting the program altogether because they're not getting enough money or there are not enough students to make it viable.

"If you translate that across the board, it's hard to see how market forces are going to give you the student numbers to keep language programs going."

'Presence lacking'

Targets for the Asian Century include:

By 2025, Australia's GDP per person will be in the world's top 10, up from 13th in 2011, requiring a lift in our productivity.

This will mean Australia's average real national income will be about $73,000 per person in 2025 compared with about $62,000 in 2012.

Globally we will be ranked in the top five countries for ease of doing business and our innovation system will be in the world's top 10.

By 2025, our school system will be in the top five in the world, and 10 of our universities in the world's top 100.

All students will have continuous access to a priority Asian language - Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese.

Our diplomatic network will have a larger footprint across Asia supporting stronger, deeper and broader links with Asian nations.

Our leaders will be more Asia literate, with one-third of board members of Australia's top 200 publicly listed companies and Commonwealth bodies having deep experience in and knowledge of Asia.

A parliamentary committee has also raised questions about whether Australia's diplomatic network is up to the job of supporting them.

The sub-committee says the Department of Foreign Affairs has been under-funded for the past 30 years.